Here at Revolver, we're always on the hunt for new songs to bang our heads to — indeed, it's a big part of our jobs. With that in mind, here are the tracks released this week in metal, hard rock and hardcore that have been on heavy rotation at Revolver HQ. For your listening pleasure, we've also compiled the songs in a Spotify playlist, which will grow each week.
Heilung - "Norupo"
Danish experimental folk band Heilung may be dedicated to telling the history of the Iron and Viking Ages through their music — and employing human bones and throat singing in the process — but the production and execution of their enrapturing new track "Norupo" proves fresh and inspired with its multiple soaring vocal performances and densely atmospheric undertones that roll throughout its four-minute run. Hypnotic and evocative, this preview of Heilung's upcoming album Futha hints that another tradition-steeped masterpiece from the fascinating collective is to come.
Knocked Loose - "Mistakes Like Fractures"
The most important thing to a Knocked Loose song is its heaviness, and their latest single "Mistakes Like Fractures" is an anvil of a song. The band leveled up their guitar work on the new track, conjuring a kind of tone that transcends hardcore and goes full-on metal — and leaves every other "metallic hardcore" band in the dust. There's an absolutely insane breakdown that just begs for people to destroy each other when it goes off live. We can't wait.
Spirit Adrift - "Tortured By Time"
If their epic new single "Tortured By Time" is any indication, Spirit Adrift are aiming for the sun and the stars with their upcoming album Divided By Darkness. The band crests a wave of doom and progressive, rocking out big-ass guitar parts that constantly feel like they're evolving from one bar to the next. The song is a hell of a ride, full of emotional peaks and valleys, winding guitar solos and vocalist Nate Garrett's exasperated words.
3Teeth - "American Landfill"
3Teeth don't fuck around when it comes to industrial. Their approach goes straight for the jugular with gnarly tones and grim concepts. On "American Landfill" — their newly released track that singer Alexis Mincolla describes as akin to "getting buried under the ruin of a fallen empire" — 3Teeth grind together super-low guitar work and zaps of synths that creates a heavy-as-hell groundwork over which Mincolla spews his furious lines. A true crusher of a track.
After the Burial - "Exit, Exist"
Showing no mercy from the jump, technical hardcore rippers After the Burial start "Exit, Exist" with a bang and refuse to relent throughout the track's shifting tempos and atmospheres. Sideways riffs and simplistic but brutal drum beats populate the leaden breakdowns as razor-sharp vocals and dizzying licks progressively kick up the intensity before an unforgettably sinister, chugging guitar line leads the track out as intensely as it began.
Polyphia - "Look But Don't Touch"
Polyphia's latest cut sounds mostly like an experimental, kind of quirky instrumental that indulges in the scronky six-string antics that guitar nerds' dreams are made of … except it's all set to a hip-hop tinged, vaporwave backdrop. It doesn't make much sense on paper, but in the hands of these young prog-metal memelords it works surprisingly well. After all, sometimes it's nice to chill out and have a good time with music. A lyrical passage, courtesy of guest singer Lewis Grant, finally comes in during the slowed-down last third of the song, giving it a pop ballad-like edge before dissipating into fading beats and tones.
